Tuesday, July 11, 2017

"No. I want to do this for you," was a phrase we heard often in the year we spent planning and building a house.

Hospitality is simple. It's sharing what you have for the good of others - drink for the thirsty, food for the hungry, shelter for the homeless, love for the rejected, and care for the broken. It's opening our hearts and homes to the brother, the sister, and the stranger.

To be Christian is to have been shown hospitality. To be Christian is to practice hospitality. We who've been welcomed into Jesus' home, cannot help but welcome others into ours. At the core of Christian hospitality is our attitude toward our houses, our homes.

We had been blessed to live in a parsonage for 17 years, but knew we needed our own home. It was not as much an investment issue as it was practical. If I retired or could no longer be a pastor, my wife and family would have nowhere to live. For years we looked for a house. Nothing worked.

Today we live in our own home, but that reality was only possible because of the generous hospitality of so many. Contractors worked with little or no profit. God led us to sub-contractors who were believers who wanted to bless us. A men's Sunday School class bought us tools to use. I cannot give you many details because they all asked us not to tell others what they had done. They were not hospitable to us because they wanted recognition. They were hospitable to us because Christ had been to them.

From the land to the final product, our house was built by hospitality. We have been given a great resource that we can now use to practice the same hospitality toward other brothers and strangers. May God never let us forget. May he never let us become selfish with his generosity.

(The picture was our wonderful framing crew, John Pollard and the Hernandez brothers.)